


What is Love?

by DarthChocolate



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 09:24:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17383943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthChocolate/pseuds/DarthChocolate
Summary: This is my take on how Hera learned Kanan Jarrus' real name. It includes flashbacks





	What is Love?

       The Jedi Temple’s library on Coruscant had a mountain of information. Caleb Dume liked to bury himself in it. Madame Jocasta Nu was in charge of the library. She didn’t mind the young padawan in there often. She had been troubled by his unending questions. She felt more gray hair sprouting out of her head from them.

      “So, if a Sith Pureblood didn’t have the Force, would he or she still be considered Sith or just a Pureblood?” Caleb asked.

     Madame Nu sighed. “Since they’re all extinct, that’s a moot point.”

     A brief moment later, he looked up from the viewscreen. “There was a Sith who became a Jedi.”

    She nodded her head. “Yes, there is always hope for those…”

    “He and a fellow Jedi had a kid. Wait,” he glanced down. “There are a few accounts of Jedi in relationships.”

    “Well, …uh…”

    “Why don’t Jedi have relationships now like in the past?”

   “Love is forbidden.”

   “Why? Is love part of the Dark Side?”

    She was at a lost for answer. This had been very rare for her. She was grateful when his master Depa Billaba walked and addressed his question. “Do you think it is part of the Dark Side?”

   He thought about it. “How would I know?”

   “If fear, anger and hate lead to suffering,” Master Billaba posed to him. “What does love lead to?”

   “I don’t know.”

   “That’s alright. You don’t need to know the answer right now. You need to get going. Our ship is ready to launch.”

   Caleb dropped the question from his mind and followed after his master. The answer wasn’t important to a kid.

 

 

    **Many years later** , the young man, Kanan Jarrus had been sitting at a booth in a tavern with Janus Kasmir who was old partner and sometimes mentor. They were sitting across from their red-haired human contact. They were supposed to be discussing items to be smuggled. However, their contact became distracted by the Rodian bartenders.

   “That’s true love.” The man commented to them.

   “They are just staring at each other.” Kanan gestured to the young couple in the other booth who had been making out. “Now, they’re in love.”

    The man scoffed. “That’s lust. It’s not real love. The kind of love that endures. You, kids today, have no respect or concept of it.”

     Kanan despised being called a kid and was about to yell back. When Janus intervened, he banged his glass down. “Here is a novel thought. Let’s stick to the business at hand. We don’t have all day.”

    They discussed the job. Kanan half listened to them while he observed the two couples. The younger couple soon broke apart and found new partners. As for Rodian couple, a young Rodian boy walked towards them. It must have been their son since they gave him a hug. In addition, they gave him the same warm smile that they had given each other. This weighed on Kanan’s mind as he and Janus headed to their ship. He couldn’t stand it any longer. He blurted out. “What is love?”

    “Something to be avoided.” Janus laughed. He regarded Kanan for moment. “You really don’t know. They seriously taught you nothing.” The “they” had been the Jedi Order which had been destroyed by the new Empire and Order 66. “Fine,” he grunted. “There are two things in life, passion and love. Passion is short and sweet if you’re lucky cheap fun. Love is like… I don’t know… crazy and powerful. It’s like the Force, I guess.”

    Kanan rose his eyebrow skeptical. “It binds the universe together? Is it in all life?”

    “Actually, it does. At least for the two love birds, they’re bonded together. Then they are crazy enough to want a vomiting pooing new lifeform.” He grabbed Kanan’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. You don’t need the Force or love. Stop wasting our time. Go get the ship ready to take off.”

    He did as he was told. Yet, Kanan couldn’t stop his annoying mind from thinking about it. If the Force was a part of him, can he truly give it up? If love is a part of us, how could the Jedi give it up? It ached inside Kanan’s heart as he stared at that Rodian couple. He wanted to feel that way. He also dreamt of being a Jedi. Both of those ideas were foolish and dangerous for a person on the run. His rationale mind told him to give it up. His heart was too stubborn. Maybe, if he ignores the stupid heart long enough, he can cast those crazy notion in a deep pit inside himself. So, they could never bother him again.

 

 

**Many years later,**

 

    Kanan had been aboard the Ghost for a few months. It had been a pleasure working alongside the beautiful Twi’lek pilot Hera. Though her droid Chopper was a different story, he made battle droids look sweet and cuddly. When they were first introduced to each other, he hissed at him. Kanan didn’t even know that droids could do that. While Hera was there, Chopper performed his ship duties. The second that she left, the droid made it his goal to drive Kanan off the ship by pranks and by literally trying to shove him off the ship. Dodging his electric shocks was worth it as long as he was with Hera. He could listen to her voice all day. Their jobs were fun.  They worked harmonious together. She would figure out an objective, and he would come up with a plan to accomplish.

   Not everything was so easy. Every time he flirted with her. She waved him off with a polite giggle. Never in Kanan’s whole life had it taken this long to get the girl. He attempted to view her as a challenge like climbing out of a sarlaac pit. Hera was unlike any other woman. They were all open books. He still hadn’t deciphered much about her. She kept him at arm’s length which he respected because he did the same thing with people. He adored her personality except for one trait. She had this annoy self-sacrificing spirit. That will only get you kill. Kanan refused to be that stupidly naïve. This is what their fight was about.

   Once the Ghost’s door was shut, Kanan let her have it. “We shouldn’t be sticking our neck out like that.”

   Hera turned to him. “They would have died without those supplies.”

   “We almost died and got caught instead. This isn’t what I signed up for. If you want to keeping doing these crazy missions, you’ll be doing them without me.” Kanan threaten even though he didn’t actually want to leave her.

   Hera refused to budge. “It is not crazy to help people. Besides, you knew about this before you boarded that we would be taking jobs like this. I saw you today. You enjoyed helping those people.”

   He hated when she saw through his lies. “No, I didn’t.”

   “Yes, you did.” She countered. “We both know that you have been helping people before you met me. Why can’t you admit that you like helping people?”

   “Because I don’t like it. End of story!”

   “It is not the end until you admit it.”

   He was fuming. “There is nothing to admit!”

    “Yes, there is,” Hera couldn’t get a hint. She was just like that irritating little voice in his head. “You like helping people. Admit it! You want to help people in trouble.”

   “No, I don’t.”

   “Yes, you do!”

   “No, I don’t. It’s not me. I’m not that STUPID KID ANYMORE! I AM NOT CALEB!”

   Suddenly, it became silent once he realized what he said.

   Her voice softens, “Caleb…is your birth name.”

   “Yeah,” Kanan had an urge to flee to his room but couldn’t move. “Caleb Dume.”

    “I’m Hera Syndulla.”

    “Syndulla?!” She had never mentioned her last name before. A last name that was familiar to him. “Like General Cham Syndulla who fought alongside Master Windu in the Battle of Lessu?”

    “He is my father.” She bit her lip awkwardly.

    The shock worn off. He remembered that he was anger at her. “No wonder, you want to save everyone. You’re following in your father’s footsteps. How cute! Your daddy’s little soldier off fighting the evil Empire.”

    “I’m not doing this for him.”

     “Really?!”

     “Yes, really,” he could hear the pain creeping into her voice and regretted asking her. “He doesn’t approve of what I am doing. He thinks I’m a fool and wasting my time doing it.”

    “I’ll bite. Why are you doing this?” Kanan didn’t want to press the matter further, but he had to prove his point.

    “She saved us, and the Empire killed her.” She fought back her tears. “My mother was brave and smart. The Empire was going to bomb one of our villages. She found a way to evacuate the entire village, and she died accomplishing it. She told me… The last thing that she said was ‘don’t lose hope.’ That is why I’m doing this because hope isn’t only for one planet. It belongs to the entire galaxy. I fight the Empire, so no one will have to lose a loved one again. She would have wanted me to do that.”

    Kanan couldn’t speak. “Master Billaba would have wanted him to do the same thing.” he thought. “Is this why his Caleb’s old thinking won’t die out?” He remembered how patience and kind she was. Despite all the years, he still remembered her smile for him. “RUN!” her last words haunted him. He didn’t just abandon her once. He abandoned her twice. He ran away from her teaching.

    “You’re broken too.”

   He saw his reflection in Hera’s eyes. “No, I was coward.” He realized. He let her wrap her arms around him.

   Hera stroked his hair. “You’re saving people because of your master.”

   “No,” he confessed. “I’m afraid because of her.”

   She didn’t get mad or look down on him like he thought she would. Instead she hugged him tighter, “You don’t have to be afraid of who you are here. You’re safe here.”

   “I can’t be Caleb again.” He lifted up his head.

   “We can never be who we were, but this isn’t you either.”

   Kanan pulled away from her embrace. “What if you don’t like the real me?”

   “It doesn’t matter. It only matter if you like who you are. Though I do have a good feeling about the man that you really are.”

   He smirked at her.

   “What?”

   “You sound like a Jedi.” Kanan gently stroke her arm smiling. She grinned back. They were caught in each other gaze. He felt the familiar connection to her. It had scared him before. Now, he didn’t mind his emotions being exposed to her. She was scared and quickly pulled away embarrassed.

   “I need to… I should go check on the compressors. If it is charged too much, it will blow up in Chopper’s face.” Hera excused herself.

   Kanan let her leave. She needed time. With a dead mother and her father abandonment, she needed time to feel safe again. He went into his quarters and sat down on his bed. Then he took out the neglected holocron from in his drawer under his bed. It was dusty. He held it in his hand and remembered back. The Jedi Order and Master Yoda always said that attachment was forbidden. Yet, his master had worded it differently, “must not  grow too attach.” He hadn’t realized the difference before. After so many years of suppressing his feeling and the Force, they decided to come back and punch him in the face. He listened as Hera yelled at Chopper in the cockpit. Kanan answered to himself. “It isn’t part of the Dark Side, master.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> For more information go to https://aurora-light-blog.tumblr.com/


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